Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL (pronounced ZAY-al [IPA: /ˈzeɪ.al/] in Japanese, pronounced ZEK-sul [IPA: /ˈzek.sʌl/] in English) is a Yu-Gi-Oh! anime and manga series and the successor to the Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's series. It was followed by Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V on April 6, 2014.

Starting with the show's fourth arc, the show was advertised under the name Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL II (pronounced zay-al [IPA: zeɪal] sekando in Japanese, pronounced zek-sul second in English), but both NAS and TV Tokyo classify it as the same show, with the episode numbers continuing from where it was left off instead of returning to the start.[4][5]

The first season of the English dubbed version premiered on October 15, 2011 on the CW4KIDS Toonzai. The second season was brought to CW4KIDS's second Cartoon Block, Vortexx. Official English subtitled episodes can be found on Hulu, though only available within the United States thus far.

Contents

Summary

Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL

Japanese Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL (遊（ゆう）☆戯（ぎ）☆王（おう）ＺＥＸＡＬ（ゼアル）) logo

Dubbed version title screen

In a city in the near future, Heartland City, kids and adults enjoy Augmented Reality Duels. Augmented Reality Duels are Duels that use Duel Gazers and D-Pads, which when the two are used together, whether on the ground or in the sky, cause monsters to erupt from buildings and fight each other. The hero is Yuma Tsukumo. At a beginner level, he's a champion at absolutely losing. Due to a chain of events, Yuma ends up challenging the number one delinquent at his school, Reginald. His destiny is changed by a bizarre door he's seen in his dreams. When Yuma unlocks this sealed door, countless lights fly from it and escape. And when Yuma comes to, he sees the mysterious entity, Astral, who came from a parallel universe, standing before him.

In order to regain Astral's lost memories, the flying lights from the door that have turned into the 99 "Numbers" cards, these two must work together. A series of mysterious and powerful rivals begin to appear before Yuma and Astral including a young boy named Kite Tenjo, revenge-seeking Vetrix and the maniacal Dr. Faker.

When the memories of Shark's past life, Nash, are awakened, he decides to lead the Barians against Astral World. With Nash restored to the throne and Earth fusing with the Barian World, the Seven Barian Emperors decide to invade Earth for the final battle. When Yuma and Nash finally confront each other, their duel will end the Inter-dimensional War in the most unexpected way...

Manga

The Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL manga is written by Shin Yoshida, illustrated by Naoto Miyashi and published by Shueisha. Unlike Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, the Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL manga was released before the anime and follows the same story as the anime up until Rank 009.

The series is set in the near future. Something unexpected happens as Ryoga Kamishiro challenges Yuma Tsukumo to a Duel. When the mysterious entity Astral appears before them a new legend begins.[9]

Spin-off

Yu-Gi-Oh! D Team ZEXAL is a spin-off of the series made by Akihiro Tomonaga with the cooperation of Wedge Holdings. This spin-off is non-canon to the anime and manga series, and focuses on humor.

Just like in the anime and manga, the series is set in the near future. However, it has no relation to them. Here, Yuma already knows Astral since the beginning, and forms a Dueling Team with Kotori, Tetsuo and Takashi.

Episodes

DVD

Development

An encore screening of Yu-Gi-Oh! 3D Bonds Beyond Time on February 20, 2011 in Japan contained details on the production of Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL. The second 2011 issue of Weekly Shonen Jump included details of the screening a competition on how one hundred and ten readers can win passes to see it.[11]

4Kids confirmed that an English-language dub would premiere on October 15th, 2011 at 9:30 AM.

The backs of the cards have been edited to become the standard backing seen in the other series, with an exception in the first 8 episodes, when they re-aired, the backings are changed. In episode 26 and onward, the backing of the cards changed to how they appear in the World Duel Carnival arc, just like the Japanese version.

The scenes depicting Numbers users aging from "Photon Hand" is cut. Although this isn't the case when Kite takes Reginald Kastle's soul.

When an Overlay Unit is used, the sound effect has been replaced with a new one.

The Life Point sound effect is replaced with a different one than the original.

There are 3 seasons in the dub.

References to death or killing of characters are toned down, worded indirectly, or removed.

Trivia

The ZEXAL series is the first spin-off series where the main protagonist does never have any in-person encounter with the main protagonist of its predecessor series throughout its canonical plotline. (In 5D's, Yusei and Jaden did meet in the movie Yu-Gi-Oh! 3D Bonds Beyond Time which follows 5D's canonical plotline thus making ZEXAL the first season where the current main character does not interact personally with the main character of its predecessor series.)

This is also the first spin-off where a new type of monsters is introduced, Xyz Monsters, which do not have any level but do have a rank instead.

With 146 episodes in total ZEXAL is the shortest running anime spin-off (which has ended already), so far. However, the ARC-V series has only two episodes more.

Since all 146 episodes have been dubbed into English ZEXAL is the first spin-off anime series to be completely dubbed since the original series.